Thank you. Firstly, I just like to say that I am disappointed by the Welsh Government's attitude to the call for this emergency debate in Leanne Wood's name. I have had many constituents and many people from across Wales wanting to know the opinion of AMs on this, and there has also been a petition in relation to the reaction by the First Minister in stating that he would support 'any intervention'—his words, not mine: 'any intervention'. I think that when a First Minister of a country, a nation, makes those comments without consulting us as a Parliament, then that is a very dangerous attitude to take. But I'm not surprised, in the last few days, that he has made that call.

I am also surprised because I asked the Cabinet Secretary today about what she was doing in relation to Syrian refugees, and that is an important part of how we deal with this particular crisis. For example, there are currently 5.64 million external Syrian refugees. Of these, only 500,000 are residing in refugee camps. There is a funding gap between donations received and donations required of over £2.1 billion to provide proper humanitarian care. There are 6.1 million people displaced within Syria, twice the population of Wales, and 13.1 million within the country require humanitarian assistance. I just wanted to reiterate these figures because they are staggering, particularly when we consider the pre-war population of 22 million. Syria is utterly devastated. It's economy has been almost entirely destroyed, as have substantial parts of its infrastructure. It's a country that, in many cases, is now a nightmare of destruction and death.

I understand that there is a frustration and conflict surrounding people's views on Syria. I know that, morally, people feel that there should be a response to the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime, but that should be done with diplomacy at the heart of it. I feel we should be focused on the consequences also of military action for the people of Syria and what it means for those people residing there and those who are made destitute as a result of war. Given that the country is in such a state of destruction, I fail to see the humanitarian benefits long term of military strikes. We have seen no strategic plan by the Prime Minister as yet and no exit strategy. Even if the military strikes were carefully targeted, more missiles flying over the heads of Syrian people, more explosions, more possibilities of reprisals as a result, the more and more they find themselves at the centre of world tensions between global and authoritarian nuclear powers.

We should also be aware that with the Russian Federation now firmly entrenched within Syria, the threat of military action from NATO countries is now not a realistic long-term deterrent, in my view. So, we need to plan for and facilitate peace talks and meet the humanitarian needs of the people of Syria. We must put in place a proper plan via the Department for International Development and offer Welsh assistance where possible, as we have done in previous circumstances—in Palestine, for example—in helping to cover the funding gap between donations needed and received. We must prepare to take more Syrian refugees, to fulfil and acknowledge our proper role in this crisis and so we can do something truly beneficial for the people of Syria. And, when we do take refugees, we must provide for them properly so they do not come to an alien country and find themselves without recourse to help or public funds.